CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Paulo was the first awake of the teens the following morning, and although he couldn't see much out of the tiny porthole beside his head, the soft, limited light filtering through it and the other three in the double berth cabin said it was early. It was quiet past the cabin door as well.

Ty had shown them the berth after dinner and left them to sort out sleeping arrangements amongst themselves. Two bunks ran along each side of the small space, almost touching at the pointy end as the beds sloped to follow the curve of the boat. The boys had each taken a bed, and Amber and Li had squished up, top to tail, on the bottom one across from Paulo.

Amber was facing the wall, her body half obscured by her bunk buddy, but Paulo could just see Li's face in the dim light. She looked surprisingly peaceful in rest, and a stark contrast to the cheeky, hyperactive ball of energy she was when she was awake.

The bunk above them contained Alex, the lanky lad looking a bit cramped in the shorter than normal bed. Hex was in the bunk above Paulo, out of sight, but he hadn't heard so much as a peep out of the hacker all night.

A soft knock at the door interrupted Paulo's thoughts- peaceful, finally, with the most stressful day of his short life fading into a mere terrible memory. The narrow door opened to reveal Ty's head.

"Morning," he said, very brisk and matter-of-fact, like he was trying to get a dithering meeting off to a start. "Wake the others. Up on deck in two minutes." He withdrew, shutting the door.

Across the room, Alex's blonde head stirred. "Whashappening?" he slurred, groggy with sleep. He yawned, propping himself up on one elbow as he scrubbed at his eyes with a fist.

"We are to be up on deck in two minutes." Paulo relayed the message as he swung his legs out of bed. His bare feet nudged his boat shoes as they hit the floor. The thin canvas had dried to a harder than usual texture thanks to their salt water soak, but he slipped them on without a murmur. The toes were still a bit damp.

Hex's legs suddenly appeared from above, narrowly missing Paulo's head. Hex forewent the ladder, dropping straight to the floor. He didn't say a word, but his nose did wrinkle in clear disgust as he forced his own salty shoes back onto his feet. It was hardly worse than the salty swimmers they'd slept in, though. Courtesy of a fresh water shower head up on deck, they'd all stripped down to their bathers and rinsed off the previous evening, giving their clothes a good scrubbing at the same time. Like their shoes, their outer wear had been drying overnight, and- like the shoes- they weren't entirely pleasant to put back on.

Alex was next out of bed, nudging Li awake as he collected his t-shirt from the rumpled pile it had fallen into during the night. He shoved his feet into his shoes with a grimace. "Oh well this sucks."

Amber took a lot more prodding and shaking to wake than Li did, who- after a brief muttering protest that was made somewhat unintelligent and incomprehensible by sleep- sat up. She picked up her t-shirt and her face soured, a groan of disgust escaping her mouth at the half damp, half salt-stiffened fabric.

Hex made a beeline for the door before Amber was out of bed. "Bit crowded in there," he explained off Alex's questioning glance. He was also keen to avoid the Boston-accented whinge fest that he knew was about to start.

Alex read into the unspoken second part of his answer and hurriedly joined the Londoner, leaving Li and Paulo to deal with Amber. The rest of the boat was silent but, if they strained their ears and shut out the noises floating through the door behind them, they could just head movements above deck. That explained the seemingly empty boat: Pete, Ty and Fraser were waiting for them on deck already.

"What do you think's going on?" Alex asked Hex. He got a noncommittal grunt in return, but refused to allow Hex's sour attitude dampen the flicker of hope in him. His face brightened. "Maybe they fixed the radio," he suggested. "Or we've got a lift back early. Or-"

"Well why wouldn't he just say that?"

Alex blinked at him, confused.

Hex sighed, like talking to Alex caused him physical exhaustion. "I heard Ty. He didn't sound like we had a ticket out of here."

"But what else would it be?"

Hex shrugged, and although his face gave away nothing, Alex felt that the hacker had more of an idea than he was letting on. Suddenly, that little flickering hope felt less so.

They waited for the others to join them, Amber still grumbling and complaining as she hopped along, tugging her left shoe onto her foot while trying to thread her t-shirt on, all while clutching at Paulo to stop herself from overbalancing. They headed up the steps, the mood growing tenser and tenser with each passing step. It seemed bizarre- these men had saved their lives after all, but whether it was Hex's ominous vibe spreading, or a collective gut feeling, none of the teens raced up onto the deck with hopeful grins and bright eyes.

Their mood turned out to be fittingly sombre for the equally as serious faces that greeted them. Fraser was stationed at the tiller of the boat's tender, launched in the water and bobbing at the end of its tether off the stern. Pete stood off to one side, his dark eyes hooded as he watched the five teens straggle up the stairs and assemble on the deck. Ty's arms were folded, his feet planted; he looked all business, and deeply unhappy about it.

Ty gestured with his head towards the tender. "All aboard," he said in the same monotone as he'd greeted Paulo with just before.

While the rest looked at the tender and Fraser, Li's eyes travelled further, towards the green covered island they'd moored in the shelter of the evening before. She turned back to Ty, putting two and two together but unsure if she'd reached four or not. "Is there a radio on the island?" she asked, trying not to let her voice sound too excited.

Ty chuckled, and Li got the impression that had the man been standing closer, he'd have patted her on the head. No further clues were give, and with no other option, the teens filed onto the tender. With the five of them plus Fraser, the small boat wallowed in the water, and their progress to the island's beach was slow.

Fraser slowed the tender while they were still in waist deep water, the sandy base of the lagoon visible through the clear water. He idled the motor and gave them a pointed look.

Well so much for drying their clothes and shoes off overnight. One by one, they plopped over the side into the water, all still confused as to what was going on. The waist deep water proved an accurate description for all but Li, the shorter girl landing in something that was closer to being chest height. She didn't even try the tiptoe dance to save her shirt as the others did; no point, and she'd just look pathetic.

As soon as he'd offloaded them, Fraser put the tender outboard into reverse and backed away until he had room to turn, swinging the tender about to head back to the boat. He hadn't said a word and left the five very wet, very bewildered teens in his wake.

"What- What- What?" Amber spluttered, tossing her hands out to the sides as Fraser made his getaway at twice the speed that they'd made their trip out. "What the hell?" she shouted.

"Amber-" Alex said, trying to get her to calm down.

She was a bit beyond that point. "No," she fumed. "Seriously. What. The. Hell. They fish us out of the water then dump us on an island- an island that we have no idea where it actually is? This is insane."

Maybe not. Alex had seen the 'firepower' Amber had spotted the day before, and although the rifles did indeed look like they'd lend themselves to hunting feral pigs, he also couldn't ignore the possibility- given what had just happened- that their 'rescuers' were nothing more than conscious-filled associates of the unsavoury characters who'd kidnapped them and then tried to blow them up.

Amber seemed to reach the same conclusion, only a couple of seconds behind the others as her rage dissipated. "Oh you're kidding me." She rolled her eyes. "Of all the boats in the ocean, we had to get picked up by them. That's just great."

They waded to shore and wrung themselves out on the beach. Amber's mood shifted even further downhill as the sand coating her boat shoes reminded her off the Bright Island arrival, and the 'schnitzel bag' incident. Things had really just been on a constant downward spiral since then. Surely they had to be more than overdue for some good luck. Even just a little? She was hit by the overwhelming urge to cry, and only just managed to hold back the tears that swam in her eyes; she took a big, shaky breath and turned to face away from the group for a moment so they couldn't see her face while she got herself together.

Li had already found a positive as far as she was concerned. "Okay," she said with a shrug. "We're a little bit stranded. But," she continued as Amber's lips pursed and Hex's eyes rolled, "at least we're not in the water. Hey? That's good."

"Brilliant, Li," Hex said. "You've identified the only silver lining to this whole crappy situation: we'll die, but at least our bodies won't be eaten by sharks. We'll just get picked to bits by land based predators instead."

"We're not going to die. We'll be fine," Alex promised them.

Hex snorted. "Does that come with a money back guarantee?"

"My dad's in the SAS-"

"And my dad's a butcher, but it sure as hell doesn't mean I could carve a steak out of the backside of a cow."

"He's taught me stuff. Survival stuff."

"We don't want to survive," Hex said flatly. "We want to get the hell off this island."

Paulo was studying the boat, still moored in the lagoon, its decks empty; the men must have gone below again. He'd expected them to hightail it out of there as soon as Fraser had got back from dropping them on the island. The fact that the boat was still anchored and they'd left the tender out made him uneasy. They weren't planning on going anywhere, so… What were they planning? His brown eyes moved left, leaving the boat, crossing the water and finding a rocky point that jutted out of the island. What lay beyond that was hidden by the raised outcrop, but in the distance a green covered mountain rose. Paulo's eyes narrowed as he scanned the canopy, pulling something out that didn't look like it belonged.

Li nudged him. "What?" she asked, staring from his face to where his eyes were resting, bored with Alex and his tin when she realised it didn't contain anything that was immediately useful to them.

"Up there." He pointed where he'd been staring, at what looked vaguely like a roof peaking out from the tree line, then turned to seek guidance from Alex. "Might that be a good idea?"

"What?"

In answer, Paulo nodded up at the raised land beyond the outcrop.

Alex looked thoughtful. The structure looked like it might be nothing more than a lookout, and he had no doubt that Ty hadn't been lying when he'd told them the island was uninhabited, but that didn't mean that Paulo's find wouldn't bring them something helpful. He cast a nervous glance back over his shoulder at the moored boat. And it would get them away from the lagoon and their former rescuers.

"Fancy a bit of a walk?" he asked the others.

Li bounced, like a puppy whose ears had pricked on hearing the 'w' word. "Yeah!" she enthused. "We're like… explorers." She grinned.

As much as she was coming to like the girl, Amber found Li's current enthusiasm horribly grating. "This is not a holiday, Li," she reminded her, as though any of them could forget.

"I know."

"Really?"

"Yes." She shrugged, her smile not wavering even slightly. "But we're stuck here, right? So we might as well make the most of it."

"'The most of it'?" Amber repeated, incredulous. "I don't- Urgh." She stomped off down the beach, and although the rest of her complaint was loud enough for the others to hear, it was more like she was talking to herself. "This is exactly why I didn't want to come on this stupid program."

Hex couldn't help himself as he and the other three hurried to catch her up. "What, you foresaw this? You knew we'd be hijacked, almost blown up, kidnapped then dumped on an island by guys who are probably drug traffickers but definitely criminals?" He stared at Amber with a carefully arranged expression of utter disbelief. "Why on earth didn't you warn us?"

"Shut up." She turned to eyeball Li and Alex. "This 'bit of a walk' better be worth it." She glanced at her watch and, for just the tiniest moment, a flicker of something close to worry took over her features.

Getting around the headland proved no problem. The rainforest on the island was thick and didn't even seem to have any animal tracks that they could see from a quick glance at the tree line, so they skirted the edge of the water and clambered over the rocky point. Beyond that, they figured, lay a coastline that they could follow until they had to start cutting a path upwards to the lookout.

"Oh," Amber said flatly as they crested the point and, instead of the easy to follow beach they'd been expecting, found a section of coral dotted water that stretched a good hundred meters.

The channel separated them from their destination, which turned out to be nestled at the top of a second, smaller island that was even steeper and more densely covered with rainforest than the one they were currently on. They waited until they'd navigated the slick, algae covered rocks on the other side of the point before deciding on a course of action.

"It doesn't look deep," Li pointed out. The water was clear, with no dark patches that would indicate a major drop off.

Amber tracked her eyes up and down the channel. "Current seems tame," she said. "We could probably walk most of the way, but if we had to swim a bit it shouldn't prove too difficult."

"Just watch the coral," Alex warned.

They didn't need telling twice. Justin's minor coral mishap on Bright Island with a doctor two minutes away was one thing, but such an injury out here could prove a lot more serious, with the only help at hand the basic medical supplies in Alex's survival tin and the fact that Paulo had 'done a first aid course'.

There was no whinging about wet clothes and shoes this time. They were all still damp from Fraser's drop off in the shallows, and keeping their shoes on seemed a far more sensible course of action than to not; even a thin sole of rubber between them and potential hidden coral was better than bare feet. It was getting hotter by the minute, and wading into the water was actually pleasant.

Amber and Li had been almost right. For the most part, the water wasn't that deep, except for right in the middle of the channel where it suddenly slipped from thigh height to chest and the current was unnoticeable apart from on that deeper section where it had a distinct tug. It wasn't so much that they couldn't keep their feet, but Li did accept- somewhat grudgingly- Paulo's offer of assistance in the form of a piggy back as keeping her head above water and her feet on the bottom at the same time proved a physical impossibility.

On the opposite beach, they shook the water from their shoes and considered the new island- and the work ahead of them. Following the line of the canopy, the island rose in a steady incline that plateaued out at the top. The only break in the foliage was where the lookout poked through. The rainforest seemed untamed; they were going to have to make their own track.

Alex led the way, picking the least perilous path that he could manage. The undergrowth was made up of what seemed to be every type of vine imaginable, and thorns bit at them if they got too close. With every step they took, all Alex could think about was how inappropriately dressed they all were for such an activity; they'd had better protection during Allison's bush walk, and that was on an actual, well worn path.

Despite the obstacles, they stuck to their task with grim determination and were rewarded with a welcome sight as they crested the final slope of the island and came across a clearing, complete with the lookout. Sweat dripping from them, mixing with the remnants of saltwater still clinging to their skin and clothes and banishing any reminder of the cool ocean from their memories, and their arms and legs peppered with scratches ranging from superficial to deep, bleeding gouges, the five teenagers greeted the simple timber structure with relieved smiles.

"It looks decent," Hex remarked, in a tone that said he'd been expecting otherwise. "There's obviously been people here regularly enough before to warrant making it."

The thought allowed a small ripple of hope to spread amongst the teenagers; maybe, just maybe, they weren't as far off the beaten track as they had feared.

The lookout was a small box of a room on stilts, with a staircase (missing only a couple of steps) leading up to the wraparound verandah. It certainly looked like it had been sitting on the island for some period of time, and vines from a couple of the only trees left close to it had taken it upon themselves to trail onto the roof, snaking across the tin like nature was trying to swallow what was once its own, but apart from the missing steps it seemed sound.

Paulo was the first one to venture onto the steps, a move that Alex didn't think particularly smart until the Argentinean pointed out that he was the heaviest of the group, and if it held him, it'd hold them. It did, which was a relief, but they took extra care and only sent the next person up once the previous was standing on the veranda.

Once they were all up there, Paulo poked his head into the open doorway that led into the lookout itself. He gave the room a quick once over and announced, "Looks okay."

They filed in after him, finding the space bigger than it had appeared. It was a single room, enclosed fully on two sides, the open doorway on the third, and a long rectangle was cut into the fourth. A bench ran the same length as the window, the gap in the wall arranged at the right height so that, when sitting, you'd be able to see out and lean your arms on the sill. This side was positioned to face back down the incline they had just bush-bashed their way up, and it gave sweeping views down and over the islands and surrounding water. Posters and photos, faded and torn with time and the elements, covered the two solid walls, and there was a desk with a rickety wooden chair squashed into the corner.

Hex headed for the desk and found a bonus item stuck to the wood with some rusty push pins. "Check it out," he said, nodding at the discovery.

It was a map of what appeared to be the two islands, the channel they'd crossed cutting right up the guts. It was clearly home made, and they couldn't be certain how accurate it was, but it did give them more of an idea of the layout of the place they'd just been dumped on.

The second island- the one they were on now- was a simple little blob, enclosed with the coral dotted channel on the longest side and what appeared to be sheer cliffs dropping to deeper water around the rest of the coastline. The other island that they'd left behind looked far more user friendly. Trees still covered the majority, but its incline seemed nowhere near as intense and most of its coastline seemed to be rimmed with beaches, or low lying stretches of rock apart from one side on the opposite end of the bay that they had been moored it; a steep ridge and a high outcrop jutted out. Continuing in that direction, opposite to the way they'd walked, beyond the lagoon and the ridge lay a couple of bays, and then a long stretch of sand that snaked all the way around the remainder of the island, past the coral channel, before it turned into the rocky point they'd clambered over. The radio they'd been crossing their fingers to find in the lookout wasn't there, and given that the structure was marked on the map (complete with a customary red X and a 'you are here' just for good measure), they carefully poured over the rest of the drawing, wondering if they would find any other possible places of salvation highlighted.

There was nothing quite as distinctly identified as the lookout was, however on the other larger island there was a random circled space, towards the centre of the landmass and not too far from the ridge line further along that overlooked the first lagoon. With no clues as to what the circle might indicate, it was merely a hopeful possibility rather than a certainty, and at that moment it was unclear if making the trek all the way across to investigate would even be worthwhile.

Li had found a large wooden chest tucked under the desk and dragged it out. The lid was stuck shut, and it took a bit of brute force from Paulo before they managed to get it open. Inside they found a pile of faded yellow paper that hadn't fared against weather and time well despite the relative protection of the chest, and a smaller metal box. Li tugged it out of the chest and set it on the floor.

"Ah, some helpful things!" Paulo enthused when Li opened the lid, spotting an assortment of medical supplies. "Brillante!" He started to sift through the box, making a mental catalogue of what was in there, what condition it was in, and what sort of use they could come up with it for.

Alex had barely even heard Paulo's comment; he was the only one not focused on the boxes and their contents. His mouth was dry and a dull ache that had started to pound behind his eyes reminded him that water needed to be a priority. The discovery of the lookout was wonderful, as was the shelter and vantage point it could provide- even given the fact that the trees around it had clearly grown since it was last used, and the view was slightly obscured- but it came with a pressing problem: they were about as far away from a source of water as were possible on the small island; they had passed not so much as a puddle on the trek up. The irony of being surrounded by the ocean, and possibly dying of dehydration, didn't escape him.

Paulo had managed to find a pile of bandages that were only a little ratty around the edges, some saline pills and the biggest box of sticking plasters Alex had ever seen; it was a fairly basic haul, but better than nothing, although how sticky the plasters still were would remain to be seen. Paulo carefully stowed the selection into the pockets of his board shorts, distributing a couple of bandages to Li when he ran out of pockets.

Amber had carefully removed the pushpins from the map and the map from the desk. It was covered in clear contact, but only on the front, and the paper felt frightfully fragile in her hands. It was as good a guide as they were going to get, though, so she folded it over just enough so that it could be slipped in her belt pouch. Her eyes landed on the face of her watch as she zipped the bag up again. "Hey," she said. "We missed breakfast."

"Because we were getting dumped on a deserted island," Hex reminded her. "Priorities."

"Food is a priority."

Alex nodded before Hex could get another word in. "And so's water," he said, his mind never quite having strayed far from that problem. He gestured at their surroundings. "We can't stay up here."

"So where do we go?" Li asked.

"Back down to the beach, for starters. Then go from there."